Couple

PROJECT OVERVIEW

Context

Couple is a startup that was created in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the course of 2 years, what began as a concept developed into a full scale dating and live event platform. Currently, Couple is live testing its speed-dating events across North America and parts of Europe, with the goal of refining their code base to support mobile platforms. My part in this project starts in the early days and continues as we further develop the platform.

Role

I worked as the lead designer for product prototypes, UX workflows, product strategy, UI standards, and UX research.

Team

2 business strategists, 1 product owner, 1 UI/UX designer, 4 developers, 1 marketing specialist

PROJECT DEFINITION

When I joined the team, we had little more than our core problem and a few assumptions about how we could solve it. My first order of business was to work with the team to determine the project’s goals and objectives. By collaborating with development and business leads, we narrowed down the probable markets to the ones most likely to engage with the potential product. From there, I was able to formulate a research strategy to validate our assumptions and identify the scope of the product.

Problem

How do we make & maintain meaningful connections with others, when global events and technology encourage us to isolate ourselves? How can we develop a solution that is widely accessible, and encourages people to be more genuine when meeting people?

Objectives

Explore the socio-economic conditions of the dating industry to determine if there is a viable entry point into the market.

Identify possible ways to use Couple’s patented technology to address current user experience problems in the online dating landscape.

Determine how we may improve people's ability to connect with each other in a meaningful way.

Assess the desirability, viability, and feasibility of a potential product and determine if said product warrants development.

If the product warrants development, the next step is to define its scope, key features, and architecture. After that, we would carry out the design, development, and testing.

RESEARCH

Initial speculation from business strategists revealed that the online dating market would be the easiest to enter, and have the greatest impact for people.

After testing competitor platforms, it became clear that ease of use, in depth matching algorithms, and diverse profile settings were the standard. Furthermore, many of the services gamify the dating experience and provide curated lists of potential matches.

After conducting interviews with potential users, I found that the common issue with existing platforms was a sense of inauthenticity throughout the experience. Between fake profiles, the inundation of matches, and paid VIP placement, many users expressed that they felt like they were being led on.

When asked about their thoughts on the leading dating apps, users often expressed that while initially exciting, they quickly become frustrating. Despite this, interviewees also stated that they felt like dating apps were still the best option to meet new people in today's culture. When asked for their rationale, multiple people stated that it was hard enough to make friends, let alone a partner.

ANALYSIS

Upon review, I found that these dating applications often fail to meet the user’s initial need for joining. The actions like swiping through profiles, comparing compatibility scores, filling out extensive questionnaires, are all activities that enhance the experience of hunting for the “perfect match” Which encourages users to act in a more competitive manner, frequently to their own detriment.

This becomes more apparent when looking at user behavior. The “swipe left” gamification incentives superficial posturing and minimal investment from users, who on average spend >7 seconds assessing the value of each match. This can lead to an increased sense of isolation and disengagement.

Meeting new people for the purpose of companionship is inherently an emotionally charged activity. Excitement, vulnerability, optimism and anxiety are commonly experienced. This results in a range of needs that have to be addressed before someone would feel comfortable opening up.

Upon observation, it seems that security and certainty are the primary facilitators that allow people to feel confident enough to authentically engage with others. To achieve this state, we would have to provide safeguards for user’s physical and emotional wellbeing. Furthermore, user’s would have to feel that the product/service would be a place where they are welcomed and have the opportunity to develop authentic connections.

In short, users need to be certain that the value we provided is worth their time and emotional investment.

At this stage, we determined that “meeting new people” was enough of an unsolved problem to continue forward.

ITERATION

The next step was to assess what we could provide as a better solution to the dating ecosystem. We had already identified what features were successful in other platforms, and where those services failed to meet the users needs. At this point we would need to develop a new approach to our core problem, one in which would ideally use existing technology that the company had recently developed.

We started by holding brainstorm sessions with user pain points being the initial focus. This generated a list of potential product features that was then compared to industry standards. After which a set of features were identified that allowed our product to both meet current user expectations, and address existing service gaps. These features would then be evaluated in regards to impact on the user’s experience and costs to develop.

Once we had a list of core features, I started to map out the basic flow of the product. This was done to assess the movements of the user and to identify any inadvertent gaps in the end to end experience.  
With this list of features and a general sense of how they could integrate, we believed that we could refine these ideas into a new comprehensive dating product.

DEFINE - PRODUCT

With research and initial concepts established, we re-evaluated them against our project goal and current market conditions. I determined that there was sufficient desire for a new approach to dating, a viable entry point into the market, and was feasible with our patented technology. Furthermore, we believed that the benefits of our product provide a direct solution to the core problem we aimed to address.

Our main product would be a video based dating platform, in which users would connect over short video calls. To encourage genuine interactions, we chose to emphasize users meeting each other, rather than to rely on algorithms and curated profiles.

This approach gave us numerous benefits. Chief among them is allowing users to actually meet people, which provides a sense of security and foundation for building a lasting relationship. This also provided a differentiating factor for the business, and reduced user uncertainty of a profile’s validity.

After consulting with stakeholders, we established the product’s scope and key features. After which I then constructed a provisional feature roadmap. Lastly I laid out the information architecture of the platform in preparation for initial designs.

DESIGN

I started with some quick pencil sketches to quickly generate concepts for the layout of the product. During the dating event, users are in one of two main states: they are either dating someone or in a party room to socialize while waiting for their next date. This creates divergent criteria that needs to be addressed to maximize a user’s engagement.

While dating, we want to provide an intimate experience that's free from distractions. That means keeping the UI clean and unobtrusive, while also making it clear what support features are available.

The goal of the party room is to entertain the users while they wait, and to encourage them to socialize. Here, users can move between video-chat rooms, play games, and watch live performances. Navigation is critical here, since the experience users have is determined by the room they’re in.

Once the early structure of the platform was set, I moved onto wire framing. This is when I started to layer in the main UI elements for controls, navigation, and chat. One early area of concern was how to design a unified experience when taking the multiple states into account.

The goal of Couple is to bring people together, whether it’s to find someone special or someone to grab a beer with. The Couple logo embodies this by combining an open geometric structure and rounded terminals to convey a welcoming and friendly tone. The vibrant blue is accented with a rich red to highlight the various relationships that can form on the platform.

Rubik was selected as the principal font to harmonize with the logo’s letterforms. Nunito Sans is used to bring a more humanist touch and optimal readability for body copy.

The main philosophy of the design system was to minimize the visual weight of the UI and maintain the gentleness of the visual style. In accordance with the Atomic Design method, I developed a library of tokens and grid systems.

With wireframes and design systems in hand, I began working on high-fidelity mockups for the initial prototype (and ongoing iterations). Working closely with the PM and Dev team, we were able to rapidly build out the V1 of Couple’s dating platform.

VALIDATION

This, alongside various focus group studies, continues to be the primary means in which we test each iteration of the platform.
Initial results were positive for user experience despite severe technical issues. Mobile phones in particular had frequent connectivity issues. Shortly after the first round of testing we developed a performance model that focused on desktop.

On these subsequent tests, we began to identify opportunities to improve the experience. These include adjusting the event format to improve regional compatibility, provide more options for users to engage with their matches, and improving our handling of ISP performance issues.

Updates

As of now, Couple is on its V3 platform. With a refined codebase, we were able to relaunch mobile support, improve video quality, and introduce new date support features.